Alone
by fantasyinfinity
Summary: Just a silent moon and a lonely spirit.


Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians.

* * *

**Alone**

Sometimes he'd be too slow to move out of the way, or just wasn't paying attention, or was just so desperate that he'd take a chance again and try. He'd talk to them. He'd fly right in front of them. He'd start snowball fights. He'd play pranks on some, making them slip on ice, and juncture up a large blast of cold wind, dark cyan eyes lit up in pure mischief. He'd have fun with them, make the young ones happy with his early snow days, and laugh amusedly at the annoyed adults. He brought winter and fun times, what he loved to do most.

Then, when he got too close and they got very near, there would be a flicker of blue that almost felt _cold_ running through him, causing him to even shudder slightly. Being who he was, he _never_ really shivered or shuddered from _cold_. Except for these times. It was a different kind of chill that wasn't _physically_ cold, though. It was a tingling chill that went up his spine, along with the feeling of emptiness. 'Cause they'd walk through him. Like he wasn't even there.

Like he didn't even exist to them.

It wasn't so unexpected. It happened, but no matter how many times it did, it didn't make it hurt any less. After three hundred years of trying _everything_, it still inwardly hurt him to know he was practically _empty air_ to them. Sometimes now, he'd only just gasp.. raising a hand to his stomach as if to reassure _himself_ that he was still there, still solid–and at least to him, he knew he was. Now it's almost come to the point he was pretty much used to it, being unseen. Unnoticed. He'd hide the feelings away, keep it locked up inside of him.

It would only be a second that it happens, when they pass through him. He'd just be there, invisible as ever, while they'd continue on their way, oblivious.

Then he would fly away with the help of the wind and his staff, his only companions.

o=-=-=-=-=-=-=o

The leafless branch bended from the sudden weight upon it, intricate ice ferns crackling outwards from the boy's toes in swirls along the smooth bark. Heavy snow flittered down into the city below, glittering white in the faint light of the partly-covered moon. Every shop window and car windshield was coated in a layer of ice and snow, every block covered in a fresh new blanket of it. Deep blue eyes stared down at the city, just watching, from his place crouching on a tall slender tree in the forest near Burgess, Pennsylvania.

Idly the boy waved around his staff and froze up a couple of branches above him on the tree. The ice coated it in a blue-ish white. He twirled his staff around him, enjoying the quiet crackle of the ice on bark, covering more surrounding branches in frost. Soon enough half of the whole tree was frozen, the ice shimmering like glass. Realizing it, he stopped freezing over the tree and sighed. The snow still continued to fall heavily over the city below, thickening the blankets of snow even further. Another sigh escaped the boy's lips. He took a moment to calm himself down, along with the snow, before there could be a harsh blizzard. It started to fall slower, less heavily, and some of the dark grey snow storm clouds that'd gathered receded.

The cold biting wind blew at his face. His hood was pulled up, casting a thin shadow over his eyes. He hung one leg limply off the edge of the branch, an elbow rested on his other knee and his back leaning against the trunk. His long wooden staff was held in hand. The staff, resembling a shepherd's hook, had frost designs on it which glowed a slight light blue where he clutched it. The boy wore old brown trousers, a navy blue sweatshirt, and no shoes. At the neckline and the end of the sleeves and hood, his sweatshirt was also covered in frost. If one could have seen him they'd think the teenage boy was quite underdressed for this chilly weather, but it didn't effect him much. He still felt cold, and he was cold himself to the touch, but it really didn't bother him. Being who he was, he ought to be less affected from the winter weather than normal people.

He was Jack Frost. And, technically, he wasn't really like normal people, just that being said.

The winter spirit.

A spirit. Not exactly a ghost, but, it practically _felt _the same thing to him. Just an invisible, forever ignored spirit wandering around the earth for centuries, alone. At least he had winter by his side.

Of course, there were others out there, like him, who he would run into occasionally here and there. They were more well known, like Cupid, the Groundhog, Lady Luck and the leprechauns, and so on with the others. Then there were the Guardians, a group of spirits chosen to protect the hopes, wonder, dreams, and memories of childhood. However, their company never really lasted long, because, of course, they had work. That's why Jack was usually just by himself, but he didn't really care about the others. Most of them seemed to ignore him, too, anyways. They seemed so busy all the time, working to do whatever they had to, keep up the belief and all that.

Belief.

The word echoed in his mind. It was the one word of which he wanted _so much_, but as always, no matter how hard he tried, he never really got to experience what it was like.. to be believed in.

No one really knew him except from the small mention of his name in the lyrics of a song.

No one really acknowledged _Jack Frost _as an actual person, just the name they always shrugged off as merely an expression for the winter wind nipping at their noses.

No one thought he was anything much, but a myth.

Or, they've never heard of him at all.

No one believed in him.

As he sat leisurely on the tree, the spirit of winter glanced up at the night sky. The clouds had drifted away enough so that he could better see the full moon, a perfectly round sphere of silvery white. For a moment Jack just stared up at it, almost expectantly, before quickly glancing away bitterly. After almost all this time of being silent, why would he speak to him now? The moon had never spoken to him again, never helped him _once. _So why, after _three hundred years _of the moon ignoring him, would Jack expect him to talk? Did he expect the moon to suddenly, what, actually _tell _him _something?_ So he shook his head and drifted down from his branch, tugging his hood further up. Now walking through the snowy forest, Jack snorted to himself. _As if._

His anger turned to sadness as more questions of just _why_ filled his head.

Why _won't _the moon talk to him?

Why can't he just, perhaps, even give a _hint_?

Why won't people _believe_ in him?

Why was he even here?

_What was his purpose._

Jack stopped walking as he reached a frozen lake within the forest. He stared down at his reflection in the glassy ice. It was this lake where he'd risen from, this very lake. Jack remembered taking his first slippery steps on the slick ice, then finding his staff, and then the moon speaking to him in the faintest whisper. _You are Jack Frost, _and that was all. Nothing else. even after almost three hundred years of solitude.

He was Jack Frost, and he was alone.


End file.
